March 23–July 22, 2012
MMA La Mirada
San Diego artist Arline Fisch is a multimedia artist and innovator in adapting techniques in fiber and metal. Designated a “Living Treasure of California” by the California legislature for her work as an artist, educator, author and contributor to the field of American crafts, Arline has a distinguished career as a maker of jewelry and body adornment. She is professor of art (emerita) at San Diego State University where she founded its program in jewelry and metalsmithing in 1961 and was awarded a gold metal of the American Craft Council in 2002.
Monterey Museum of Art presents Arline Fisch: Sea Jellies, a multimedia installation of 100 life-sized jellyfish species crocheted from color-coated stainless steel, nickel, copper wire and fiber. Suspended in space amidst an illuminated sea-blue wall tone, visitors will have the opportunity to feel as if they have been transported into the world of sea jellies and interact with these wondrous creatures through the eye of an artist. A recorded video projection of the Aquarium’s jellyfish will add a ‘live’ backdrop, enhancing the installation space with a multi- sensorial experience.
This installation compliments the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s upcoming exhibition, The Jellies Experience, due to open at the end of March 2012. Arline Fisch: Sea Jellies will open at the MMA La Mirada location March 23rd in the Klemme Gallery, in conjunction with California Impressionism: Selections from the Irvine Museum.
March 24–May 27, 2012
MMA La Mirada
The Monterey Museum of Art is proud to present California Impressionism: Selections from the Irvine Museum. This exhibition of works by California’s most renowned impressionist artists will be on view March 24 through May 27, 2012 at the Monterey Museum of Art-La Mirada.
Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century through the late 1930s, California became a top destination for artists from all over the world. Although these artists came from a variety of backgrounds and created artworks in many styles they shared an intense love affair with the awe-inspiring, sublime landscapes of California. Spanning over eighty years of artistic accomplishment, this exhibition consists of approximately sixty paintings and watercolors by California’s most renowned artists, including: Franz Bischoff, Jessie Botke, Paul Dougherty, Edgar Payne, Granville Redmond, Armin Hansen, William Ritschel and Henrietta Shore. The diversity of landscapes and settings that inspired these artists stretches from Laguna to the High Sierras. This stunning exhibition has been selected from the extensive holdings of the Irvine Museum—one of the preeminent collections of early California art. The exhibition will be accompanied by fully-illustrated book and a range of educational programs for adults and families.
Image: Franz Bischoff, Roses (in a tall glass vase), 1912, oil on canvas, Courtesy of Mrs. Madeline Martin Swinden
April 5–June 17
MMA Pacific Street
Modernism was introduced to the American public in 1913 when the International Exposition of Modern Art (commonly known as the Armory Show) offered the first wide exposure to avant-garde European art. As a result, many American artists began to turn away from the light-infused style of Impressionism to the use of vibrant, even violent color and simplified form. Regional artists in Monterey such as Francis McComas and Gottardo Piazzoni were influenced by the atmospheric beauty of California’s untapped environment and their startling simplification of form and muted pallet, heralded abstraction and modernist concepts. The lack of detail, and later with the combination of expressive brushstrokes, gave way to progressive compositional structures where broad patches of color and simpler lines became the dominant subjects. Artists such as Armin Hansen, sisters, Margaret, Esther and Helen Bruton, John O’ Shea, Henrietta Shore, Emmy Lou Packard, and Pedro de Lemos continued to forge a distinctive, regional California Modernism and helped establish the Monterey Peninsula as an important American art center.
April 5–June 17
MMA Pacific Street
June 16–September 30
MMA La Mirada
In Sharp Focus: the Legacy of Monterey Photography will be the third in a series of major photography exhibitions organized by the Monterey Museum of Art. On view June 16 through September 30, 2012, In Sharp Focus will examine the Group f/64 photographers—seven innovative northern California artists including Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, and Alma Lavenson—and their continuing legacy to the Monterey Peninsula. Turning away from the expressive, soft-focused, pictorial style of photography of the early twentieth century, these artists instead delivered realism, precision, high contrast, and intense detail without interpretive manipulation. Their approach was a modernist departure of its time, which revealed the natural world as never before and transformed American photography. Complementing these legendary artists will be works by the succeeding generation of photographers, among them: Henry Gilpin, Rod Dresser, John Sexton, and Michael Kenna who continue to capture the magical and evocative landscapes of the Monterey region.
The success of our previous exhibitions—Ansel Adams: Portrait of America (2010) and Edward Weston: American Photographer (2011)—have solidly positioned the Monterey Museum of Art’s as a leading authority on the history of twentieth century California photography. In Sharp Focus: the Legacy of Monterey Photography will build on this critical and popular acclaim.
Enhancing the exhibition will be educational programs and activities for adults, families and children including: cell phone tours, docent-led tours, scholarly lectures, and the Museum’s popular Family Day with free admission and art activities for all ages.
Image: Imogen Cunningham, Magnolia Blossom, 1925, gelatin silver print, collection of Mills College Art Museum, Oakland
July 5–October 21
MMA Pacific Street
Selections from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation, and Guardian Stewardship
The eminent and groundbreaking 19th century French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840 – 1917) is described by Rodin Museum as having changed the face of figurative sculpture. His ability to portray dramatic psychological and emotional states in his subjects garnered him worldwide recognition in his lifetime and catalyzed sculptors that followed. His subjects include renowned individuals of his day, as well as figures from mythology, literature and the Bible. Rodin worked in clay and his pieces, many of them monumental, were then cast in bronze. The exhibition will consist of a selection of portrait busts and mid-size figurative sculptures, including the best known The Thinker and The Kiss.
July 5–October 21
MMA Pacific Street